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'Black' wing root walkways, what were they?


Stonar

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As per the title. What were these made from on aircraft like the Hurricane, Typhoon and Tempest, one of the latter being my current victim.

Were the walkways just a special paint, which would therefore wear like paint, or some other material?

This seemingly simple question has me flummoxed. I have looked through several books but to no avail.

Thanks for any help with this.

Steve

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The modern non-skid is gritted paint, with a texture akin to a cheese grater. I remember well, the amount of skinned knees caused by trying to run up wet and muddy Merlin ramps in Iraq......

When I have worked on classic aircraft though, I have replaced walkways with a gritted black form of aluminium tape (speed tape). Not entirely sure of how it was done back in the day though.

Edited by paul_c
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Thank you for the replies. I'm still not sure what the 'strips' were, but I don't think that I'll be chipping them :) Luckily I never do black as black, so dark grey is fine.

It seems an odd area to put a drag inducing non slip material on a high performance fighter, maybe why that's why they didn't extend to the leading edge, but there you go.

Cheers

Steve

Edited by Stonar
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It seems an odd area to put a drag inducing non slip material on a high performance fighter, maybe why that's why they didn't extend to the leading edge, but there you go.

Cheers

Steve

The walkways don't usually extend beyond the front spar, to avoid skin damage and rarely is the cockpit forward of that area

I doubt the walkways added much more drag above that of a production standard wing construction

Doesn't help here, but post-war non slip walkways were a textured paint, according to the paint AP the substance could be mixed with any airframe colour.

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When I ran the Corrosion Control / Metal shop at VMGR-234, I applied a lot of them. There were two stiles. One stile was a 6" wide tape that was basically a plasticized 40 grit sandpaper. The other is a epoxy paint that has silica sand added to it that we put on with a paint roller. The tape is used very rarely and ONLY on the interior of the aircraft. The paint is used on the exterior or interior.

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When you look at photos of Hurricanes there's clearly a separate panel for the walkway which is painted with anti slip paint. But it also acts as a reinforcement for the fabric or metal wing surface.

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The reason you would never use a "stick-on" material externally is because it could peal off in the slipstream. However having said that, all of our national insignia were stickers not painted on. That is on subsonic aircraft that used the Red-White-blue insignia. supersonic aircraft had everything painted on. Once we went to the two tone cammo than everything was painted on also.

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P36 : non skid paint, contains carborundum powder

H75 french, H87, P40 : Linoleum (Green "AeroFloor", 1/16 thick)

P51B & C: non skid paint

Hawker Typhoon: rubber sheet (Wondergrip rubber), from 42 the walkways was (over?)painted " A satisfactory painted on walkway has been developed at Langley and tested in service. This is now applied to all production Typhoons"

Hampden : Wondergrip

MS 406, D520: rubber sheet(Wondergrip)

Edited by BS_w
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Hawker Typhoon: rubber sheet (Wondergrip rubber), from 42 the walkways was (over?)painted " A satisfactory painted on walkway has been developed at Langley and tested in service. This is now applied to all production Typhoons"

That is great information. It also suggests that on a later Hawker aircraft, and successor of the Typhoon as in my subject, that 'satisfactory painted on walkway' would have been applied.

Cheers

Steve

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If the walkways were black, The substrate is made of a mix of Tar and Soregum with a grit added to it. Thined out with a solvent such as Gasoline, Mineral spirits, Acetone or Turpentine

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  • 2 weeks later...

P36 : non skid paint, contains carborundum powder

H75 french, H87, P40 : Linoleum (Green "AeroFloor", 1/16 thick)

P51B & C: non skid paint

Hawker Typhoon: rubber sheet (Wondergrip rubber), from 42 the walkways was (over?)painted " A satisfactory painted on walkway has been developed at Langley and tested in service. This is now applied to all production Typhoons"

Hampden : Wondergrip

MS 406, D520: rubber sheet(Wondergrip)

While not the best ..this crashed Tomahawk wing photo gives some idea of the material applied.. in this case not a paint to but a strip of material applied ( per BS_W post a Linoleum Green "AeroFloor", 1/16 thick)..to the wingtop.... also note mount points for the medal strip around the edge

P40%20anti%20skid_zps307wpg3a.jpg

Edited by HBBates
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Hello Hume, how are you

In the different manual service P40, P40B, C and G it is wrote "walkways: linoleum covered walkways are provided..." it was cemented on the skin

on the picture of wreck, as you wrote, the binding strips are lost but we can see the holes of screws along the edges of walkway.

Another interesting, on this a/c, the camo paint covered the walkway

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Hello Hume, how are you

In the different manual service P40, P40B, C and G it is wrote "walkways: linoleum covered walkways are provided..." it was cemented on the skin

on the picture of wreck, as you wrote, the binding strips are lost but we can see the holes of screws along the edges of walkway.

Another interesting, on this a/c, the camo paint covered the walkway

Hello Sosthene ..Im doing fine, just moved to Las Vegas in June, near Nellis AFB, how are you?

What manual service were you finding that in? I was looking through mine and not finding. Do you have the TO number and page?

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